Program teaches job skills to students with special needs

The four Southeast High School seniors — all of whom have a developmental disability — make up half of the first class of students in the Springfield School District’s Ink 186 program.

The one-month-old program, funded through an Illinois Department of Human Services Division of Rehabilitation grant, is aimed at helping students with developmental disabilities transition into the workforce after high school.

The team of eight is split up into two groups that meet Monday through Friday for two-hour sessions. The effort is a collaboration among Springfield schools, Primo Designs, Lincoln Land Community College and United Cerebral Palsy Land of Lincoln.

David Brott, transition services coordinator for the Springfield School District, said the program teaches students job skills they might not otherwise get in a classroom.

A 2012 study by UCP ranked Illinois 48 out of the 50 states in Medicaid programs that serve people with disabilities.

Brott said there are too many developmentally disabled students who graduate from high school and wind up unemployed and living at home with their parents.

By creating a vocational-training program for these kids, it should help them garner some independence after high school, he said.

“We want to break the stigma that kids with disabilities aren’t capable of working,” Brott said.

Designing cards

On this particular day, Elmore and the three others were sitting around a table at the United Cerebral Palsy administrative office building at 101 N. 16th St.

Elmore, 18, drew a Christmas tree with a green Crayola Marker. Churchill, 18, designed a card with a paper penguin on the front.

Sarah Mauntel, the students’ job coach, reminded each to be careful about coloring too much in the middle of the card, so that people could still write their names and addresses for mailing purposes.

In all, the class got through a few dozen Christmas cards that will be sold at various school functions or by request. On other days, the students learn how to perform various tasks, such as making buttons or sorting hygiene packs to be given out by Contact Ministries, a local social-service agency for women and children.

The students, most of whom have an IQ lower than 50, also work on a specific job-training curriculum most days.

However, the big initiative is designing T-shirts. Ink 186 has plans to design 4,000 shirts by January, and Mauntel said the students will learn each step of the manufacturing process.

Since the program started, Mauntel said she has already noticed progress in the students’ behavior.

“When we first met them, they wouldn’t even talk,” she said. “Now, they talk our heads off.”

Expansion plans

Ink 186 will expand its operations next school year, according to Brott.

Because of space constraints, he said, the district was only able to include eight students the first year. Next year, however, the initiative could double when it moves into UCP’s new facility at Springfield’s former health department building at 1411-15 E. Jefferson St.

The goal is to expand the program to at least 50 students within three to five years, officials said.

Brenda Yarnell, president and CEO of UCP, said the not-for-profit has long partnered with the Springfield School District in helping kids transition into the workforce.

The Ink 186 program takes that effort a step further by creating a “micro-business” where students with special needs can work, she said.

“It was a natural partnership,” Yarnell said. “We do a lot of job training and placement for community-based jobs. This program can help make that transition into employment more seamless.”